Singapore Airlines A350 routes

Singapore Airlines in last week’s schedule update scheduled planned Airbus A350-900XWB operation to Cape Town, currently scheduled to begin on 30OCT16. The airline operates Singapore – Johannesburg – Cape Town route 4 times a week, currently by Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

SQ478 SIN0130 – 0610JNB0710 – 0925CPT 359 x146
SQ479 CPT1040 – 1240JNB1345 – 0610+1SIN 359 x146

With this aircraft changes, SIA’s South Africa service will be served exclusively by Airbus A350 from 30OCT16.

Wilson explains that the airline is currently considering both San Francisco and “another North American point”, following the airline's launch of ‘regular’ Airbus A350-900 flights to San Francisco.

That’s because the non-stop Singapore-San Francisco route is only possible with a “slight payload restriction” on the standard Airbus A350-900 aircraft – which means fewer paying passengers on board, less cargo and baggage carried underneath, or even all of the above.

Switching that route to the A350ULR version would solve that problem but reduce opportunities elsewhere, “so we’ve got the flexibility of whether we do that, or whether we deploy the ULR to another place,” says Wilson.